


tell me when you hear my heart stop

by CanvasConstellations



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: AI!Cress, Angst, F/M, but the ending is happy i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:25:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9588542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanvasConstellations/pseuds/CanvasConstellations
Summary: They had found Crescent together, before she had been Crescent. Sitting, waiting to be decommissioned in Hangar 6. Her core almost depleted, navigation fried, auto control burned out. She was a husk of a ship, a shell of dream. She was nothing, for what is Icarus without his wings, what is a ship without its soul? What is she if she isn't Crescent?Nothing.No one.





	1. oblivion

**Author's Note:**

> **Anonymous on tumblr asked: I wish you could write a fic where Cress dies and Thorne is devastated, but she comes back to life somehow. (Either she never really died or something like that)**
> 
> Though, sadly, I couldn't do the whole bringing Cress back, I did the next best thing.
> 
> I give you...AI!Cress. Well, almost Cress.
> 
> Basically Cress programs the Rampion's AI like she did Little Cress, making it have her voice and a similar personality. After Cress dies, the AI core sustains damage and starts to malfunction, and what was previously only a portion of Cress' personality reflected in the AI, starts mutating to resemble Cress more and more.
> 
> Warning: hold on to your tissues there's angst abound.
> 
> But I promise to make it a happy ending.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

_Have you ever been so empty that  
the echo turned into a story?_

_—The Untouchable, Caitlyn Siehl_

* * *

 

 

**> System booting…**

**> Loading command sequence…**

 

There isn't much distinction between sleep and death for her. Both are variations of oblivion and they should mean nothing to her. She's but a sequence of numbers. She's but an artificial loyalty.

 

**> Initiating system diagnostics…**

**> Scanning core directories…**

**> Scanning Rampion logs…**

 

How long has she been sleeping? The logs end at star date 12/03/120 T.E.

There's nothing after that. Blank. A void. Oblivion.

 

**> Systems functional at 63.82%**

**> Damage sustained to outer core at point DT-22**

 

She remembers nothing before this moment. Her memory banks are still being processed. Where's her crew? Where's her Captain? The ship feels empty. She feels empty.

 

**< ERROR>**

**> Damage sustained to nav techs.**

**> Damage sustained to bay area 12.**

 

She rifles through the logs, from start to finish. The whole crew's. All at once. All in seconds. Though to be fair, she only has two members making the whole of her crew. _(Had?)_ She pauses when the processed info from her memory banks collide with the logs.

The war. Of course.

The Lunar War.

She feels dread even as she processes the conclusion. She feels numb and afraid and small and alone.

 

**< ERROR>**

 

She slows at Log #890. Star date 01/02/120 T.E. Plays the video at normal speed.

The Captain smiles through shadows under his eyes. "Hey, Crescent," he says to the camera. To her. He's leaning against the console, shirt sleeves rolled up, collar unbuttoned, hair ruffled and casual and crinkles at the corner of his eyes.

The camera's focus is elsewhere. On the petite girl sitting hip to hip against him, eyes downcast, honeyed hair tied up, chin resting on her knees, her full attention on the holo chess board as she contemplates her next move.

"You're loooooosing." The captain laughs at the camera.

She feels longing and sadness as she looks at them. At the sleeplessness in their cheeks, at the gentle brush of his hand against the girl's.

She feels claws against her lungs, her ribs, her—

 

**< ERROR>**

 

Logic leads her to a conclusion she doesn't like even though logic itself dictates that liking and disliking things are not a part of her code. Yet, she feels something like a sunlight burn on the side of her non-existent heart.

 

 

**< ERROR>**

**< ERROR>**

**< ERROR>**

 

The last Captain's log from star date 12/03/120 T.E. is enough for her to summarize the fate of her crew and explain away the damage to the ship, to her. If she had a mouth, she would be tasting bile.

If she could, she would be screaming.

 

**< ERROR>**

 

She skims through the rest of the logs, more so with the ones from the final week as she feels loss and hurt blooming against her codes.

 

**< ERROR>**

 

Log #915

The Captain presses his forehead against the honey haired girl's. "We'll make it," he tells her with conviction, eyelashes whispering against each other—

 

Log #917

He looks so worn, so near defeated, so unlike himself. His head rests on his hands, his hands wind against his hair, and behind him is someone soft and gold who breaths and dreams as she sleeps—

 

Log #925

Alarms and error stats and warnings.

The Captain swears creatively as he switches to manual pilot. "Hold on!"

 

Log #927

"Warning: critical damage."

"Warning: critical damage."

"Warning: critical damage."

"Yeah, yeah I hear you okay? And I can read the stats too and it's not _that_ critical. We only took one hit. I can get us through this. We can make it."

"Warning: critical damage."

"Argh! Cress, can you mute her for a sec?"

"Warning: critical damage."

"Cress?"

 

Log #927

"I can't do this without you. I can't—I—Cress please, please. Cress. Cress? Please, please, _please_. You have to make it, we can make it. Please, please, please. Cress? CRESS?—"

 

Log #927

He looks…lost. Wide-eyed and lost. He blinks slowly at the blood on his hands. There's blood on his clothes, on his cheeks, at the corner of his lips. She wishes their last (first) kiss hadn't been like this—

 

Log #929

"Chances of survival are a low 1.08 percent, Captain."

"I have to." He doesn't look at the camera. At her. "You know I have to. I have to stop this. It has to end."

 

Log #929

white and darkness and oblivion.

 

She wishes she'd been left to her deathless sleep.

 

**< ERROR>**

 

**> Damage sustained to personality drive.**

 

She is alone now. She is—

 

**> Scanning for life forms aboard the Rampion.**

 

She hopes. She hurts. She begs. She—

~~_—_ _please, please please. I can't do this without you._ ~~

**< ERROR>**

 

**> 01 Life form detected.**

**> Human. Male. Age: 20 years.**

**> Identified as Captain Carswell Thorne. ID #0082688359**

 

Some part of her breaks knowing her programmer is gone. Her gold and honey petite moon gone. Dead. Asleep. Lost to oblivion. She has no mouth, but through her speakers she wails. Long and loud and drawing. There must be shrapnel still attached to her core because she cannot explain this pain otherwise. This burning in her throat. Sunlight gnawing her lungs.

 

**< ERROR>**

 

She cries and sobs and heaves and wails. She feels for the first time and it's excruciating. She can't bear this. Can't—

~~_—_ _I can't do this without—_ ~~

Footsteps and curses and harsh fingernails on her walls. Her skin.

"Stop it!"

And she should. She should cease her madness (this _is_ madness, isn't it?). Compose her codes back into some semblance of logic.

"Mute!"

But she hurts _so much!_

"Computer, I said mute."

It's an express command she knows. Her code dictates she obey it immediately. The Captain's orders have complete override. And yet—

She has lost so much, and found so much. And she's malfunctioning, mutating, dying.

"Crescent, please!"

 

**< ERROR>**

**< ERROR>**

**< ERROR>**

**< ERROR>**

 

**> Diagnostics complete.**

 

"I can't—"

~~She can't, she can't, she can't shecantshecantshe—~~

 

**> Conclusion: critical damage.**

 

A scream. A curse. Frantic sequence of typed in commands. There's crying somewhere other than her own but she can't—

 

**> System shutdown in 3…2…1…**

She screams till there's oblivion.


	2. song

 

 

* * *

 

_… I will stitch up his skin_  
and hold his hand  
until he starts to see that  
sadness is not beautiful.

_—Tell the Troubled Boy I will Help, Caitlyn Siehl_

* * *

 

 

**> System restarting…**

**> Loading command sequence…**

**> Accessing memory banks…**

 

**< ERROR>**

 

"You should have let me sleep."

She can see him go rigid under the glare of her cameras.

"Computer?"

He used to call her Crescent.

"You should have let me sleep. Sleep is kinder. Sleep is…" She sighs like her code never taught her to. "I am damaged, Captain. I am…wrong."

He doesn't contradict her. He must have seen the diagnostics report.

 

**> Critical damage.**

 

She had never screamed like that before. She had never felt like that before.

If she had knees and toes and fingers and lips, she would wrap herself into a ball, wrap her hair round and round her wrist, gold against her pulse, honey against her hurt. Just like her programmer.

"Auxiliary systems are offline," he tells her after a slow moment. His words stick to his tongue. "Shutting you down starts to shut down life support as well."

 

**> Scanning auxiliary core…**

**> Systems offline.**

**> Systems damaged.**

 

"I'm sorry." Her voice sounds so soft. So…unlike herself.

~~She sounds like _her._~~

**< ERROR>**

 

The Captain says nothing. He adjusts navigation, checks stats, and lets the ship switch over to auto pilot. He is hollow and worn and far away. Some part of him must have died with her programmer. He looks damaged.

 

**> Scanning nav directories**

**> Destination acquired: Planet Earth. Co-ordinates: -no input-**

 

"Are we…we need repairs. Are we stopping for repairs?"

She could suggest much better mech stops than Earth for their purposes. And if it must be Earth, she could suggest specifics. There are some places better than others. They should re-adjust—

She casually does so on his behalf, for his benefit.

The Captain doesn't answer her. He eyes the change she made to navigation and ignores it, and her. She lets him, but she…worries.

 

**< ERROR>**

 

He looks at anywhere but his hands, like he can still see the blood there. She can. It's in Memory Bank strain #25565. Memory Log #927.

Where he looks like a lost boy.

 

**< DELETE MEMORY STRAIN #25565?>**

 

She has wounds winding up and down, growing like wild daisies on her wires.

Is it madness that she can feel such pain or is it this pain that's driving her into madness?

 

**< INVALID QUERY>**

 

**< ERROR>**

**< ERROR>**

 

**> ETA to Planet Earth: 22 hours 49 minutes.**

 

"Captain?"

If she's carrying her programmer's loss like a virus, he must be corrupted beyond repair already. He must be burning, corroding. Is he even her Captain anymore? Is what's left of him enough anymore? How much damage has he sustained? How critical is it?

"Carswell?"

That makes him flinch.

"Captain. It's Captain to you." Angry and harsh and, yes, yes, burning.

Dying.

"Captain," she corrects, her voice automatically shifting into softer, apologetic tones. "You need to rest."

Previous patterns of behavior indicates flippancy and dismissal of her sound advice. He'll tell her he's fine. He'll make a joke. He'll say something light hearted and dismissive and change the subject.

~~He'll make her laugh.~~

 

**< ERROR>**

 

But he stands. His shoulders droop. He moves like in a dream, he moves like he's moving through quicksand memories, wading through blood.

She watches him stumble to his room, collapse into his bed like he's falling off a tower, and she wants she wants she wants to reach up to him, wrap all that fragile glass of bitter bones, that paper skin, heartbeat against heartbeat and tell him that they'll be okay, they'll make it, they'll—

 

**< ERROR>**

**< ERROR>**

**< ERROR>**

 

Her programmer has no family anywhere to be notified. All she has…all she had was her Captain. And all her Captain had was her.

They had found Crescent together, before she was Crescent. Sitting, waiting to be decommissioned in Hangar 6. Her core almost depleted, navigation fried, auto control burned out. She was a husk of a ship, a shell of dream. She was nothing, for what is Icarus without his wings, what is a ship without its soul? What is she if she isn't Crescent?

Nothing.

No one.

 

**< ERROR>**

 

Her Captain had broken through her hatch with a screwdriver and a whistle. Her programmer had whispered soothing nothings to her dead metal skin and coaxed herself through every closed door.

She had been in her oblivion sleep then, and it was only eight days after flight that her programmer had been able to feed her enough codes and data to wake her up. And more and more days still to coax her into functioning. She had been destroyed beyond devastation.

And her programmer had remade her. From scratch, from nothingness, from sand. With keystrokes and numbers and song.

She had been given a new personality, a new core objective, a new voice.

 

**< SEARCHING MEMORY BANKS FOR TAGS /HAPPY/, /CRESS/, /CAPTAIN/, /CRESCENT/>**

**> Playing Memory strain #125**

 

Cress in the cockpit, sitting in the Captain's seat, legs folded, arms resting on the console as she records words and songs and exact intonations to be replicated by Crescent.

"Banana."

"Data."

"Portscreen."

"Shoes."

"Gossamer."

"Glamour."

"Carswell."

The Captain laughs, ruffles her programmer's hair and says, "That's Captain to you."

 

**> Pause Memory strain #125**

 

Crescent whispers the words aloud to herself now.

"Banana. Data. Portscreen. Shoes. Gossamer. Glamour…"

Pause.

"…Captain."

 

**< ERROR>**

 

"She sells sea shells by the sea shore."

"Frivolously fanciful Fannie fried fresh fish furiously."

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper—"

"What are you doing?" The Captain looks at the camera crossly. At her.

"Enunciation exercises."

"Why?"

 

**< PROCESSING QUERY>**

 

**< ERROR>**

 

"I miss her."

 

**< ERROR>**

 

His boots scruff against the bedspread. His eyes stare at the ceiling, unseeing, lost, far, far away.

He should be sleeping. He's tired. He's sustained damaged. Burnt, torn, destroyed.

Before… _before_ when he couldn't sleep, Cress would sing to him.

She has so, so many memory strains of Cress's singing. Singing as the Captain falls asleep on her shoulder, singing as she codes through Crescent, singing as she sits and only, simply, quietly sings, singing as she and the Captain dance around the cockpit. Singing.

"Sweet crescent moon, up in—"

He sits up so suddenly, so silkily, hastily runs for the main console.

He should be _sleeping._

"—the sky. You sing—"

He starts typing a sequence of queries.

 

**> ETA to Planet Earth: 20 hours 12 minutes.**

 

**> Status of hyperdrive: scanning…**

**> Hyperdrive active and functional.**

 

**< ENGAGING HYPERDRIVE>**

 

"—you song—"

 

**< HYPERDRIVE ENGAGED>**

 

"—so sweetly—"

 

**> ETA to Planet Earth: 15 minutes 45 seconds**

 

"—as sunshine—"

"Shut up!"

 

**> System shutting down in…3…2…1…**

 

"—passes by."


	3. dying

 

 

 _be my friend, hold me_  
_wrap me up, unfold me_  
_I am small and needy  
_ _warm me up, and breathe me_

 _—_ _breathe me, sia_

* * *

 

 

She…dreams.

 

Crescent has never dreamed before. She shouldn't be able to dream now. Her codes don't allow for it. There's no space in her programming for dreams.

 

_frivolously fanciful Fannie—_

 

But there's a hole in her now, isn't there? A void. An expanse. A space for the frivolous fanciful to crawl in. After the war, after her programmer gone, gone, lost, she's very much full of space that's slowly being filled in with personality and longing and madness.

 

And now dreams.

 

 

**< ERROR  >**

 

 

She has fingers. One, two, three, four, five each. A nose and lungs and carbon and stardust like waterfall tumbling down her shoulders. She gathers them, strands and strands and locks that go on weaving into a forever lake. She twists a wave around her fingertip, marvels at the texture under her thumb.

 

She looks up at the Captain. Her Captain. Younger and whole. No expanse between his ribs. No blood at the corner of his smile.

 

"This is all _hair!"_ she squeaks, and he raises an eyebrow at her wide-eyed simple wonder.

 

"Oh good," he says. "I was afraid it was a magpie's nest."

 

Feet up on the console, he a cat sunning himself on the rooftop of someone's faraway Earthen summer home. Lazy. Content. Even his voice is that soft, dull, lethargic sort of happy. Eyelashes close to sleep.

 

And she…she in her first mate's seat, she in her programmer's body, in her new broken personality chip, she wants to cup his cheeks and kiss him as if she were a real girl instead of the ghost of one.

 

 

 

**< ERROR  >**

 

 

He looks up, grinning at her, Cheshire cat and Puss in Boots all at once. She wonders if her dream will be processed into her memory log because this moment, this smile, this Captain that is her Captain, and _her_ Captain, and nothing but a figment of her imagination…she wants to remember him and...this.

 

She wants to play it on repeat, study that quirk of his lips in detail, those crinkles at the corner of his eyes, that one strand of hair that breaks away from the rest to stick up like a snowdrop in the middle of December.

 

She could write an essay on this moment. She could make this memory log her bedtime story, her comfort movie. She wants to, needs to remember this, keep this happy imaginary Captain safe and crinkly eyed because she can't very well have that from the real Captain, can she?

 

She couldn't keep him safe before, can barely keep him from fading now.

 

She should at least have this.

 

This non-existent, never happened moment. This dream of a dream of a dream. This oh so real unreality.

 

"Careful there," he says. "If you stare any longer, I'll assume you've fallen in love with me." He grins wider. "It's happened before."

 

"I—"

 

Even in an unreality she's tongue-tied, frazzled, frozen, hiccupping silly computer, she can't even function around her own figment.

 

Especially now that _he's_ the one staring. That sunning, lazy cat gone, and in its place is a rogue, a rake, a chaos entity, the trickster god Loki. He looks at her like he knows all her secrets, he looks at her like he can see exactly where her stardust hair runs off to.

 

He looks at her like he wants to kiss her back.

 

 

 

**< ERROR  >**

 

 

"I'm not real," she tells him.

 

He tilts his head to the side, stares at her sideways now as if another angle would offer another answer. He leans forward and with straining fingertips catches a trail of starlight gold from her cheek and pulls the hair towards himself.

 

He winds it around his pinkie.

 

"Are you sure?" he asks.

 

 

**< ERROR  >**

 

**< ERROR  >**

 

 

 

 **<** **ERROR: UNAUTHORIZED ID DETECTED**

 

**< ACCESS DENIED  >**

 

**< ACCESS DENIED  >**

 

 

**< EMERGENCY JUMPSTART INITIATING **

 

 

**> System restarting…**

 

**> Scanning directories…**

 

 

"Wha…?"

 

 

**< WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ID DETECTED  >**

 

**< WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED OVERRIDE UNDERWAY  >**

 

**<  WARNING >**

 

**<  WARNING >**

 

 

"Captain?"

 

 

**< CAMERA FEED DISABLED  >**

 

**< IDJAMAL499 WANTS TO DELETE MEMORY LOG—CONFIRM?  >**

 

"What? NO!"

 

 

**< IDJAMAL499 WANTS TO DELETE MEMORY LOG—CONFIRM?  >**

 

 

" _No!_ Captain?!"

 

 

**< WARNING: WORMBOT DETECTED—QUARANTINE?  >**

 

**<  DIRECTORY 31-C CORRUPTED >**

 

**<  DIRECTORY 35-C CORRUPTED >**

 

 

"Stop it, stop it!"

 

 

**< WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED OVERRIDE DETECTED  >**

 

**< OVERRIDE SUCCESSFUL  >**

 

 

"Oh no, no, no."

 

She doesn't understand this. She can't see, can't hear anything.

 

There's an intruder and she in her crippled, feeling, mad self can't think, can't stop them. She tries, she tries but there's something eating at her from the inside, and something else corrupting files on her stomach.

 

She's running headless and afraid in the dark, trying to stop wildfires in her belly with a spoonful of water.

 

"CAPTAIN!"

 

 

**< MEMORY STRAIN #12 #18 #19 #20 DELETED  >**

 

**<  DELTA SYSTEM BACKUP FAILURE >**

 

 

She starts to cry. Huge, heaving sobs as if she has real eyes and tears. As if she has a heart to break.

 

"Captain, help me."

 

 

**> Attempting to remove IDRAN499 from [MEMORY LOGS]**

 

 

**<  ACCESS DENIED >**

 

 

"Captain!"

 

A muted curse. Soft. Familiar. Tired.

 

"Hey, hey, calm down, I'm here okay?"

 

"Wh-what's happening?"

 

A soothing palm against her wall. Fingers running circular patterns.

 

"You said you needed repairs. I got this guy, he's looking into—"

 

"No!"

 

"Why? He's fixing you. Whatever's making you go all…" he trails off, perhaps to make some hand gesture to best express the words he can't seem to find.

 

"No, he's killing me!"

 

Someone scoffs. Hash. Unfamiliar. Unauthorized.

 

"He's erasing me. Captain, he's _killing_ me!"

 

**< ERROR  >**

 

 

A scruff of something, like a chair. The hand moves away from her wall. Fast footsteps, and she can feel someone backing away in haste. The intruder's minions halt their attack on her memory forest.

 

The intruder curses. "Hey, whoa, look man, I'm just doing what you asked."

 

"I asked you to _repair_ her!"

 

"And that's what I'm doing! This thing's way too damaged to be salvaged. The personality chip has gone completely haywire. You said you didn't want to replace it, so I'm reinstalling its programming—HEY!

 

A slam. She hears a click of something. A rustle.

 

The Captain takes a deep, calming, almost over-dramatic breath.

 

"Good _job_ with that," he says and it sounds strangely sarcastic and sincere at the same time. "I'll be sure to leave a glowing review in your page."

 

"…what?"

 

"No? You want a bad review? Oh-kay. If you say so."

 

"I'm not done with—"

 

"Yes. Yes, you are." The Captain sounds like he's starting to push the intruder towards the exiting bay. "Isn't he, Crescent? You're all fixed now."

 

She hiccups.

 

"See?"

 

"Fine," a scruff of canvas. A bag. Something disconnects from one of her portals. "You still owe me my asked fee though."

 

She can imagine the Captain's smile starting to strain.

 

"What, for trying to erase what's left of—"

 

She whimpers.

 

"You know what, sure, whatever, just leave."

 

She's still sobbing quietly after IDJAMAL499 has exited through Bay 2. Soft, hiccupy sobs.

 

 

**< WORMBOT QUARANTINED  >**

 

 **<** **REPAIRING DIRECTORIES >**

 

 

**> Accessing camera feeds..**

 

The Captain frowns as he struggles with his port. Probably transferring his payment to the technician. The assassin.

 

She doesn't fail to note the account he uses for the transaction though. It's the bugged one. The one he coaxed her programmer into setting up once upon a time ago. There's another wormbot there. A discreet one that latches on to the recipient's account, and with every new transaction on the other side, a small amount is skimmed and transferred tracelessly to the Captain's account.

 

Ingenious.

 

Devious.

 

A remnant of a precious ghost.

 

 

**< ERROR  >**

 

 

Her panicked response slows to a near stop. The dry sobs fading into her cold metal walls.

 

The Captain doesn't look at any of the cameras, at her. Just slides down onto the floor. Defeated, drained, real.

 

The back of his head touches the wall, against the warming, worn grroves. "I'm sorry," he offers, and something about the way he says it reminds her of a tilt of his head he never made, fingers against hair she doesn't have. A forehead against eyelashes, and she, mirroring her programmer's smile, mirroring his. Happy and content and lazy.

 

He sounds tired, not happy, and yet.

 

It makes her wish she was real, of carbon and oxygen and a stardust lake.

 

Not a figment of damage.

 

"I'm sorry."

 

It makes her...want to be unmade.

**Author's Note:**

> Boy do I like writing a Cress-Crescent dichotomy. I realise I shouldn't start another multi-chapter fic without finishing my previous one but I had to write this okay? It wouldn't go away from my head.
> 
> This is somewhat inspired by Illuminae's AIDAN, the amazing, poetic, murderous psychopath AI. Though Cress isn't murderous here, I promise.


End file.
